My daughter has two large ones on the balls of both feet. I talked to a couple other moms at the gym and there daughters have all had them too. I know it's a virus, and clearly it's at the gym. Is there anything I can be doing to prevent these? I was thinking maybe I could wipe her feet down with disinfecting wipes before and after gym, but I really don't know if this is gonna help. There are several barefoot communal areas in the gym, bathrooms, locker rooms.

that's not so. yes, they're caused by a virus. that means the virus enters the body from a cut, the nose or the mouth. if it was true that "clearly it's at the gym" then every gym, including my own, would have an epidemic on our hands...i mean feet.

there is a peculiar Doctor whose name i can't think of at the moment that studied the "transmission" of plantar warts for several years. this guy studies these weird kinds of things and conducts them either at home on himself or clinical studies on all things weird that he considers "folklore" or "old wives tales" and sets out to prove them wrong.

so, 1 of the studies he conducted (and he paid people to do this) was to have 2 people. 1 with plantar warts and 1 without. he used himself as the control. the 1 with plantar warts would rub the bottoms of their feet with the Doc and with a person who did not have plantar warts.

at the end of 5 years (can you imagine 5 years?) he concluded that there was no truth as to when 2 peoples feet came in to contact with one another, and where one did not have plantar warts, including his own feet, that plantar warts could be transmitted from foot to foot. in fact, none of the participants including himself contracted plantar warts.

so, maybe the couple of Docs on this site can pipe in here. i can tell you, as plantar warts travel, i have never had even a small epidemic of this problem and my gym may be clean...but not that clean.

From what I've know, this is a fairly common thing that happens with people who are barefoot. Could happen from showers, equipment, shoes, etc...anything. My dd has gotten a couple too. We've just used Dr. Sholl's (sp?) Freeze Away and then when that didn't work quite well enough for one of them, I took her to the dr to have it completely frozen off.

My son had a few on each foot. I think all gymnasts at some point get them (at least it seems like it) We went to the foot doctor and he froze them off. the over the counter stuff doesn't really work that well on the Planter's warts at least that has been my experience.

You wanna hear a plantar wart horror story...boy, do I have one! My ds had one on his heel for YEARS!! nothing worked...freezing, compound w...no otc options worked. Finally, it was so large and hard, it was hurting him to tumble on. (This thing looked like half an oreo cookie on his heel...I'm not kidding!) We took him to a podiatrist who was, surprise, a former competitive gymnast! So he understood not wanting to cut it out and having a huge hole on the bottom of my son's foot. We tried the shaving and acid....three months in a row. No change. Then, he decided to inject my son's foot with blendymicin (SP?) which is a chemotherapy drug. That didn't work either. I stopped taking him to the podiatrist, because this was becoming the most expensive wart in history!

About 3 months after his last treatment, when we were deciding that maybe he really DID need to have it cut out, a dad at the gym said, "Try covering it with duct tape" It sounded too simplistic and easy, but I bought some plain silver duct tape, and my son started covering the monster wart and the three little ones on his hands with duct tape every night before he went to bed. In ONE WEEK...they were gone!!!! Coincidence...or maybe the expensive drugs started to work after months...maybe. But there is NO trace of the wart... NO scars. It's GONE!!

Been there ^^^^^^ and done that!! It worked for me. Sure makes me wonder if they named it duck tape because it was first discovered by a duck....or was that a via-duct.......where's Groucho Marx when you need him!!

KateR
If your son is allergic to duct tape, try banana skin. Put a piece of banana skin, inside surface next to the wart, covering it completely and then secure it there. In your case you might need to do that with a light bandage (hope you call it bandage in the US?!). Leave it on overnight. If you can replace it in the morning and evening and have it on 24 hours it will work quicker, but overnight, every night will do - fresh piece each time.
This really works too.
My husband had lots of warts on his heels and knuckles, which just wouldn't go away, despite every chemical application. In the end he sceptically agreed to use banana skin and he did have it there during the day too, but covered it with a dressing and told people at work he had cut himself! After a week they were half the size at least and after two weeks most of them had gone completely, the rest went soon after.

another probably less attractive idea for you-
i had warts for 10 years and tried all the chemicals and duct tape and banana skin to no effect
doctor suggested cutting out gluten which i did for 3 months.
warts disappeared.

Kadee had a plantar wart. It started out as a splinter in her foot. Right on the ball of her right foot. We removed the splinter, and about a month later I look at her feet and there is what I thought was a callous. Well, it just didn't go away and kept getting bigger. I was really causing her problems with turns on beam. So when I had her at the doctor for her school physical and had him take a look at it. Said it was a plantar wart. Common..no big deal..yadda yadda yadda. He put what he called "bug juice" on it. It is concentrated saliva from a certain kind of beetle. (Sounds nuts I know). He put some of that on there and it works the same as freezing or acid. Adventually it falls/peels off. She had to have two applications, a month a part.
The thing he said to me, that I didn't know, or even give much thought to, was that plantar warts come from the HPV. Now, there are many strains of HPV. Some cause plantar warts, and some cause "female" cancers. The kind that causes plantar warts does NOT cause cervical cancer. But the fact that she got a wart after coming in contact with HPV through an open wound (most likely where she had the splinter, which is why the sore from the splinter never really "went away") told him that her body wasn't able to inhibit the HPV, which is why the wart developed. If her body could, the wart wouldn't have developed even though she came in contact with the HPV. There are many people that come in contact with it and never get a plantar wart, because their bodies are able to inhibit the virus. Anywho, I'm getting long winded here. Since Kadee was unable to inhibit the virus, is why she got the wart. And that concerns him for her with other possible forms of HPV in the future. If her body wasn't able to inhibit this strain of HPV, it has a higher chance of not being able to inhibit the kind that causes cervical cancer if she ever comes in contact with that. Soooooo...he said to make sure she gets the three shot series when she starts into puberty that is supposed to help prevent "female" cancers due to the HPV.
Like I said..something I NEVER would have thought about had he not said something. Not trying to make a big deal out of it..or scare anyone. Just passing on what he said to me about Kadee and the precaution he suggested. Sure couldn't hurt, right?

well, you kinda got some of this right ^^^ but some a bit convoluted. they don't know how a woman gets cervical cancer in each and every case. they do know that certain cell types of HPV [human papilloma virus] do cause cancer. and that the vaccine only covers a few (can't remember the number, but maybe 7 of them?) but not all of the HPV's that exist. and there are over a hundred of them known to the medical community.

they do know how the HPV that causes cervical cancer is contracted. it's from a "splinter" of another "type". don't want to get to detailed here cause the kids read here so forgive my humor if you will. i think that those behaviors are what parents look at in preventing those "other" kinds of behaviors that would lead to the issue at hand.

so i know we got Doctors on this site. and 1 pretty astute attorney that works in the medical field. that this has gone to "here" from "there" really requires 1 of them to pipe in, or the discussion should stop right about here if you know what i'm getting at.

"actual skin from a banana..?? " Yes, exactly that! Let your gymmie eat the banana, cut a strip of the skin and apply the inside face to the wart then fix in place (cloth strips, or bandage in your case). If you google it there's lots of scientific blurb about why it works. I haven't read it so can't tell you why, but I know that it did for us and for lots of other people and if you have a problem with chemicals it is defintely worth a shot. Good luck.